Happy (late) Easter, everyone!

I love this holiday. After a long, frustrating week of feeling like I was punching cinderblocks every time I sat down to write, it was nice to just get away with family and take some breathing time. Easter really is about resurrection, Christ’s literal act, and, more metaphorically, how we can change (for the better) in all sorts of ways.

Watching my toddler on her first Easter (well, first where she was old enough to go hunting for eggs and such) was also a delight as well. Per the usual, she wasn’t really sure, at first, what mom and dad were trying to get her to do, but once she understood that candy and dried fruit was involved she got very excited. Made up for all the snow outside that morning.

🎶 I’m… dreaming… of a white… Easter… 🎶

The Failed Technomancer, chapter 33, is live! This was one of my favorite chapters to write—after all, Hannah was one of my favorite characters to write! Exploring the weird emotional space she inhabited was always difficult but rewarding. She (and Westley) began as a spontaneous addition to the cast during early drafts of The Failed Technomancer, and with every draft I found more reason to build her up more and make her more important.

Writing Update

Remember that time I sang all of the praises of Life, The Universe, and Everything 2024, and talked about how it was completely transforming for my writing? Well… I was a fool! A fool who dealt in absolutes!

Let me back up a little bit.

I do sincerely believe in the lessons I learned at LTUE, and I do believe that what I learned resonated with me because these lessons were valuable: they are helping me become a better author (both in terms of having higher quality and more industry). But, I made a mistake in applying these lessons absolutely. (Another way to word that might be “too extremely.”) I’ve already written a handful of completed novels, one of which I’ve self-published and another I’m working on publishing. I know my writing process fairly well. I’m not perfect, and I have room to grow, but I should have taken that advice and used it to tweak and refine, rather than entirely replace portions of my process that I already knew worked. I ignored some of the most important advice any creative can get, which is along the lines of take what works and discard the rest. (Maybe that proverb should be followed up with “And for heaven’s sake, don’t forget what already works.”)

I won’t go into every area where I may have overextended, but one area that is notably hurting my ability to progress is the advice to never revise the first draft: just push forward and write, write, write until the draft is done. Is this good advice in principle? Yes. Writers write, authors finish (to use another pithy saying). Figuring out how to push through all the hard, murky parts of your novel and just finish is a critical skill for developing authors to acquire.

But there can be such thing as going too far, at least depending on how one writes. For me, I don’t understand people who can write their scenes out of order. I have a very sequential brain that wants to work on each scene as it would happen in real time. In revision I can mess with these scenes, change their order, insert new scenes that are needed, whatever, but I can’t do what some authors do and write the climax of the book first, and then go and write the rest of the story. Even skipping just a few scenes and coming back to them later stalls my progress. The words and ideas just don’t come to me.

In my mind, this is why I need to do some revision while writing draft one. I need to reorder scenes sometimes, and if I realize that a scene is missing then I progress much more slowly until I produce that scene. That said, there is such thing as too much revision. In The Failed Technomancer, and Inner Demon, I spent too much time making minor edits that just wasted time. This includes messing with foreshadowing and other story details that I really had no business tweaking as much as I did before I knew how the story ended exactly, as well as cleaning up the prose in sentences and paragraphs that might not even exist by the time I reach the near-final draft and start really polishing my language.

I had to muck around a bit and feel lost in this story before I realized that I was shooting myself in the foot by not making reasonable revisions before forging ahead to new parts of the story. But, on the other hand, I think I needed this learning experience because it helped teach me what kind of editing and revision I can ignore in draft one, the stuff that won’t impede my ability to push forward. It’s a healthier middle-ground that, hey, I’m just glad I eventually reached, despite not initially landing there.

This is a really roundabout way to explain that while I usually track progress in terms of word count, and while I am a little disappointed by having smaller growth in word count this week than I would prefer, Hazel Halfwhisker being at 66,000 words isn’t a tragedy. (For context, last week I was at 65,000.) Part of that is because I realized that I had to take a few scenes that I had unintentionally written out of order, rearrange them, and then give them better connective tissue; other scenes needed cutting. I’ve begun that process. If it’s faster and less painful than I expect, I might have a decent word count to announce next week. Or I’ll have word count shrinkage to announce.

I do feel like I’m really stretching my mental muscles with this story—Hazel Halfwhisker might be the most difficult story I’ve written. It’s got the biggest, farthest-reaching adventure, it’s got a cast of a decent size (all of which I’m trying to make memorable), it’s from a non-human perspective but written to a human audience, it’s epic science fantasy, and more. As long as I can pull it off, the final result will be a rare treat, but I’ve got to get there first. I can’t afford to let myself run faster than I have strength!

As a little bit of a reminder, The Courage in a Small Heart, the short story that started off my interest in this world, is live if you want to go read it. I’ve included the first little chunk of the story below for your tasting pleasure.

Send-Off

Thanks for reading! Go and have yourselves a most excellent week.

---

The Courage in a Small Heart

Hazel Halfwhisker

The forest outside Whiskerroot was far larger than Hazel had imagined—impossibly large. Mind-bogglingly huge. Titanic trees stretched skyward; Hazel had to crane her neck until her nose pointed directly upward to see where the tops of trunks disappeared into leaves; they must share the same space as the clouds. Any one of their leaves would cover her entirely if it fell upon her. Their fallen sisters shifted under her paws as she walked by.

Leaves could be beautiful, but they also obscured danger. Up in the high leaves, owls could perch, unseen, unheard. A mouse would never know one was there until one of her companions squeaked in terror as he was snatched up—or worse, until she felt those cold, sharp talons pierce her own hide. Down in the low leaves, a snake could strike without warning, materializing as if it had been instantly formed from the brown, fallen leaves.

Hazel shivered and pulled her furred cloak tight around her. Feeling its soft skin helped her to imagine that she was still in her mother’s nest, surrounded by brothers and sisters, in a pile of safety and bliss. She kept walking on her back paws alone, hunched and alternating between steps and hops as her chest grew tighter and tighter.

She wore little beyond the cloak: a belt with a pouch tied to it, in which she kept pebbles of interesting colors or shapes; a bag on her back, over the cloak, which carried some seeds and empty sacks for collecting the spoils of foraging; and a spear, tied the side of her back-bag, crafted from a short, sturdy stick, mouse-fur rope, and the sharpened tooth of a cat. The cat had been found dead, she was told; cat-tooth spears were the results of fortunate opportunity and nothing more. A mouse never had any hope of killing one.

And yet, she was trailing a cat. The thought made Hazel’s body start to shake.

“Keep up, Halfwhisker,” another mouse called.

Hazel tried to, but after a few steps she stumbled, leaned against a root—taller than she was, and gnarled like an aged mouse of six winters—and focused on breathing.

Halfwhisker was a descriptive moniker. Before she had weaned and left her mother’s nest, Hazel had run snout-first into a bloodskræcher’s fire while exploring the depths of Whiskerroot. The whiskers on the right side of her face had never regrown, although most of the fur had. The bloodskræcher that had found her and nursed her back to health told her she was lucky enough that her nose still worked and shouldn’t ask for anything more.

“Craemus slowing us down,” another voice grunted.

Hazel couldn’t respond. The knowledge that she was frozen in place, helpless if a predator should appear, now captured her mind, further stiffening her limbs and quickening her breath. Overwhelming smell flooded her nose with each inhalation: the familiar stink of the mice she travelled with, the mustiness of rotting leaves, a promise of edible fungi, and multiple species of insects. Her twitching ears caught the rustling of leaves, the scraping of branches, skittering that could be a fleeing beetle, the stepping of her companions as they sighed and turned around. Moments later, Hazel was surrounded.

Mouse paws grabbed her own and began licking them, then helped her to thayma. Feeling her own paws running up and down her snout, through her whiskers, and over her ears was soothing, and soon Hazel calmed down enough to groom herself. As she did so, she glanced upward at the mouse in front of her.

Hulking over her was Pebble Cloudeye; Hazel locked up again. At seven inches tall fully stretched out, Pebble was a mountain of a mouse, and the leader of this band of Sharpteeth. Her body was all muscle, her tail short and thick, and she had one black eye and one the uneven color of a puddle full of chalky dust. She was infamous for being fearless, even compared to other gorskrmus, and had once scared a fox into flight by biting its nose. That all said, her fearlessness had also cost her sight in an eye, which was evidence enough for many mice to think she was insane. She was almost everything Hazel wished to be, yet being this close to her was terrifying.

“Heart and heroism, Halfwhisker,” Pebble grunted. Pebble jerked her head the direction they had been travelling. “Sunrise soon. A little farther and we’ll have shelter. Not safe to pause here.” She turned her head to give Hazel a long look with her good eye, then hopped off, using her long spear as a walking stick. She was tailed by the band’s bloodskræcher, bundled in a thick cloak; the other mice surrounding Hazel followed, moving in single file.

The last mouse to leave paused as he passed Hazel. He offered a paw; she took it and he pulled her onto her back paws. He was an average mouse in every way, a little over four inches from the tip of his nose to his bottom and covered with grayish-brown fur. His ears were large and round as the two moons that hung in the sky. He smiled and said, “I was terrified my first time leaving Whiskerroot, too. Now I’m just nervous.” Then he nudged Hazel onward.

Brushing under bushes and scurrying over roots, treading lightly on soft soil, keeping dense underbrush between herself and any unknown dangers above, Hazel hurried along, heart still pounding within her chest.

#

Their intended shelter was a hollow underneath a knot of mossy tree roots, accessible by a tunnel wide enough for two mice to walk abreast. The tree above had deeply pitted bark—it made Hazel think of her home, and how easy it was to climb within it to reach the various nests of woven grass that craemus loved. Though hard to judge from the outside, the hollow appeared to be large and dry. It would be comfortable, and Hazel looked forward to rest after a long night of hiking.

Pebble didn’t lead her band directly inside. They first stopped within a bush densely covered in thick leaves with pointed edges. The regular mus struggled a little to get in, complaining about getting jabbed, but Hazel easily slipped between the leaves and waited near the bush’s base. There were unexpected advantages to being small; then again, Pebble had no issue getting in either, shoving her way through the foliage, apparently unaffected by the sharp leaves. There were obvious advantages to being large.

The bloodskræcher followed close behind Pebble, protected by her bulk, then began scratching at the base of the bush. With a deep hood pulled over his head, Hazel had a hard time observing more than his pink, twitchy nose and the yellowish fur on his snout; she thought it very odd that a mouse would wear so much.

A pawful of mice were sent ahead. Ears alert, noses sniffing, spears held before them, they crept forward into the hollow and disappeared from view. A few minutes later they returned, three holding up spears with twitching brown spiders stuck to their ends, each one’s body as large as Hazel’s head; the fourth had armfuls of blubbery, wriggling things, a pale yellow in color. Hazel’s stomach rumbled when she recognized them.

“Grubs!” the mouse shouted with a grin.

“Quiet!” Pebble snapped. That didn’t diminish the band’s enthusiasm in the slightest, however; many mice rushed forward, hoping to find at least one grub to munch on before they were all claimed or escaped. Most signs of apprehension disappeared as the band wandered into the tunnel leading to hollow under the tree. Hazel, Pebble, and the average mouse took the rear; before they all disappeared underground, Pebble stopped one last time, tripoded on her back paws and the base of her tail, and looked around. She snorted and ducked inside.

In the tunnel, the average mouse spoke to Hazel again. “How are you feeling?”

Hazel had only been introduced to her new band once, briefly, before they had hurried away from Whiskerroot. She’d been given all of their names, but the fear that had clouded her mind since leaving the land she knew had made them difficult to remember. Now that she was more comfortable, memory of this mouse returned: Twitch. His name was Twitch.

She said, “I’m looking forward to food and shelter.”

Twitch hummed pleasantly. “Me too!”

They stepped into the hollow; it was an irregular circle, two feet in diameter at its longest and eight inches tall at its highest, with root-laced earthen walls and a relatively flat, soft floor. Several mice were crowded in a corner, likely hunting for more grubs, while others dropped their bags with relieved sighs.

Twitch grinned as he looked around the hollow. “No sleeping tails-to-whiskers tonight!”

Hazel wasn’t as excited. She was used to sleeping in a tight bunch with her brothers, sisters, and mother; watching mice scratch out solitary spots on the ground left her feeling lonely. Was this what it would be like as a Sharptooth? Alone, even in a crowd? Perhaps she had made a mistake.

Hazel shook her head. No—she couldn’t let herself think that. She needed this. She was tired of always feeling so afraid, and if being a Sharptooth couldn’t cure her of that, nothing would.

Twitch wandered off and began scratching out a spot near the hollow’s edge, where fibrous tendrils from nearby roots made the ground springy. Hazel followed him, hesitantly, and stood nearby, not quite looking at him. After a minute, Twitch looked up and said, “You can nest by me, if you want.”

“Thank you,” Hazel said. She untied her back-bag with her tail and slid it to the ground, then placed her spear on top of it, her cloak on top of them. She left her belt and pouch around her waist and wondered if she’d find any interesting rocks to add to her little collection.

“We’re probably not going to see that cat, you know,” Twitch said. “I mean, if we do, we’ll have to be cautious—leading terrible beasts away from the great nest and then losing them is no easy feat. But they also move around a lot on their own. Most of the time they wander off without our intervention and we come back home with our pouches full of mushrooms and seeds, nothing more.”

A nearby mouse interjected, “Cats can disembowel a mouse with one swipe, send him flying to break against a tree at the same time.” His name was Clearwater; his fur was mottled different shades of brown and his whiskers drooped.

“Crunch your entire body without a thought; little more than a snack,” another mouse growled—Bramble. His ears were short and wide, his belly brightly white.

Hazel began to shake and curl in on herself. “OOOOoooooohhhhh…”

“Lay off her!” Twitch said, nose keeping his namesake as he glared at Clearwater and Bramble. “She doesn’t understand that you’re joking around.”

Clearwater laughed, but Bramble’s ears were flattened against his head. He said, “Only half-joking. She ought to know that most of the Sharpteeth who die are the new ones—survive two or three outings and you’ll know everything you need to if you want to keep your tail out of something’s belly. That’s not to scare her—if she’s smart, that will keep her careful.” He gave Hazel an appraising look. “Then again, if she’s too scared to take care of herself, it might not matter anyway.” Bramble shrugged, then he and Clearwater wandered off toward where the grubs had been found.

“Don’t listen to them—hey! It’s all right. I’m on my third outing and haven’t seen any real danger,” Twitch said, but Hazel was past hearing. She’d never seen a cat before, though she’d heard stories—and the vicious canine at the end of her spear was more than enough to invite visions of a terrible creature, as tall as the trees and mostly made of teeth and claws.

Twitch hummed thoughtfully, then curled up next to Hazel and pressed his side against hers; Hazel leaned into him, feeling her anxiety still for just a moment.

Pebble and most of the other mice were eating at this point, some with a grub in each paw and alternating juicy bites. They chatted as they relaxed, winding down before preparing to sleep. Hazel’s eyes widened when she saw the bloodskræcher; he was standing in front of a ring of stones with dried sap at its center. He reached into a pouch at his waist, pulled out a pawful of rust-colored powder, and tossed it on the sap, then began etching it. The powder—dried blood, Hazel knew—began smoking, and then the sap burst alight. The bloodskræcher huddled in front of the fire, rubbing his paws; when a mouse handed him a grub, he stuck it on the end of a spear and held it over the flames.

Hazel shrank into herself more.

“You don’t like fire?” Twitch asked.

“It’s the reason—Halfwhisker, my name,” Hazel said. She forced herself to ignore the bloodskræcher’s fire and focus on breathing: she wasn’t anywhere close to it. It couldn’t hurt her.

“I don’t like it either. But I understand why he uses it. He’s an acomus—they’re always cold. Now, what I really don’t get is why he’s cooking the grub. Drying food for winter storage is one thing, but cooking it just to turn around and eat it?”

“M-maybe he likes the texture,” Hazel said. She had to force the words out, but talking helped her relax again.

“Yeah. Maybe.” Twitch didn’t sound convinced. “I’m going to go get us some food before it’s all gone—I’ll be back.”

He pushed himself to his back paws and walked off; a few minutes later he was settled beside Hazel again, a grub and some spider legs in front of both of them. Hazel started nibbling on the spider legs first; she didn’t like how spiders crunched, so she wanted to get them out of the way.

“Why’d you join the Sharpteeth anyway?” Twitch asked between bites.

Pebble stomped by, seemingly unstoppable as a rock rolling down a hill; mice moved out of her path, rather than the other way around. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” Hazel whispered.

Sensing something in her tone, Twitch nodded and was quiet. Shortly after, Clearwater and Bramble approached. Clearwater cleared his throat and said, “Uh, sorry for the joking around earlier. Didn’t mean anything by it. Just, you know, making light helps some of us feel better.”

Bramble nodded.

“Thank you,” Hazel said.

They both nodded awkwardly, looked around, then walked to their things and sat on their haunches, chatting as they ate. They had surprised Hazel; she hadn’t expected them to apologize. Then again, she hadn’t expected most of what she’d experienced as a Sharptooth so far.

#

It was early; the sun had not yet gone down, judging from the waning yellow light that spilled into the hollow’s entrance. Hazel stirred, stretched, then sat on her haunches and yawned. She felt much better after a long day’s rest. The cat, and all the other dangers of the world, seemed distant things now.

There was some rustling in the hollow: mice were rousing themselves and gathering around the bloodskræcher’s dead fire. Its remnants were now greasy, black charring in the dirt, coupled with a scent that offended Hazel’s nose. Standing behind the dead fire was a mouse that Hazel easily remembered the name of: Nusk No-Tail. He stood as tall as he could, but without a tail to tripod on he couldn’t fully leave a hunch. Still, he held his head high, giving him an easy view of the crowd as mice sat. A rope was tied to his tail-stump, trailing behind him in poor imitation.

The gathered mice munched on remnants of the previous night’s meal, tender roots clawed out of the dirt walls, or sunflower seeds from their back-bags. “We don’t want to miss this,” Twitch said. “Nusk is an excellent storymus.” He hopped up to stand, waved a paw to invite Hazel to join him, and scurried away.

Hazel’s side felt cold after Twitch left. She followed him to where he sat, next to Pebble and the bloodskræcher. She felt uncomfortable sitting near him, but she didn’t want to sit far from Twitch.

Clearwater noticed Hazel and wiggled his nose at her with a smile. After Hazel smiled back, he returned his attention to Nusk.

“So, what’s going to prepare you all for the day, eh? Cat hunting we go—something about the mighty Purrecta and her wicked litter of mouse-eaters? Prepare us for their tricks?” Nusk waved his pink paws as he spoke and twitched his long oval ears to accent each sentence.

“There’s nothing so distressing as the merciless Purrecta!” a mouse grumbled.

“I want to hear about Ha-Thitsle,” Bramble shouted. “Any of his stories, really.”

“Yes, Ha-Thitsle!” Twitch added.

“I’m feeling for a Fryth story,” Pebble said. At that, the bloodskræcher snorted quietly.

Nusk cleared his throat. “Well, Ha-Thitsle was on my mind already, as luck would have it—but let me see if I can serve those who wish to hear of Fryth as well. Here’s a story my great-grandfather, a spectacularly wise mouse of five winters, would tell to me. Let’s see if I can keep your whiskers twitching.” His voice was high but clear, which made it easy for Hazel to keep her attention on him. As he spoke, Hazel found herself transfixed.

---

Back when the world was new and had never been touched by winter, Fryth lived alone. Because he sought variety, he commanded the ground to reshape into unique formations, and it did. Because he sought beauty, and food, he commanded the ground to grow forth plants, and it did. Because he did not wish to be lonely, he commanded the ground to grow him a companion, and up sprouted a shell with two halves—not unlike a walnut, although much larger.

Fryth was pleased with his creation, for he saw within it life unformed. He whispered to it, told it what shape and attitude to take, and let it grow until he was satisfied. Then he cracked that nut open and set it free.

That was the first, and greatest, beast born of Fryth’s animal garden—and the mere description of such a wonderous creature would fill up much more time than we have now. So pleased was Fryth with his own creation, immortal like himself, that he continued commanding the ground to produce these life-bearing nuts, and he continued to whisper to them, instructing them to take the forms and attitudes that he imagined. From these came all creeping beasts, and those that climb, those with wings that claim the sky; hungry monsters and satisfied creatures, ones with mouths full of sharp or flat teeth, or none at all; in short, all beasts that are, Fryth imagined and created their first forebear, and named each one.

Fryth thought to garnish his work with a small but clever creature to live in the spaces where his larger beasts could not. But when Fryth called this beast forth from the depths of the nut, his paw outstretched to invite the creature into the light of day, instead it emerged and bit Fryth before scurrying off.

“Cursed Matagroskr!” Fryth said of the beast that would one day become known as the hungry, the Rat King. But Matagroskr was already gone, and it was too late for Fryth to finish a curse befitting the creature’s betrayal. Disappointed in his supposed last creation, Fryth began again, whispering all the more carefully this time, creating a creature like Matagroskr, but lesser. He knew this creature would have a hard time in a world with beasts like Matagroskr in it, not to mention Purrecta and the many other predators Fryth had envisioned, so he gave it a clever mind and a will to live anywhere. With this, Ha-Thitsle emerged from the nut and into a world that thought itself already complete.

Seeing the world and the dangers within it, Ha-Thitsle was concerned. He knew Fryth had made him to produce more mice, but he did not see a place for them in all of creation. Even in the short time that Matagroskr had been free, he had been hard at work filling the small spaces of the world with his breed.

“Oh Fryth, how will we survive?” Ha-Thitsle cried.

“By your wits and your wariness; by your willingness to live where none other will,” Fryth said.

“But another that you have created is already doing this!” Ha-Thitsle protested.

Curiously, Fryth did not respond immediately. Instead, Fryth sat by Ha-Thitsle and watched as the distant sun set and waited for Ha-Thitsle to calm. Eventually he responded, “You are my sunset creation, Ha-Thitsle, to fill even the spaces Matagroskr could not. I have had much practice. You must trust that I know what I am doing.” And he left.

Ha-Thitsle did not have long to ponder on Fryth’s words, for shortly after Ha-Thitsle had been left alone did Matagroskr appear. That great rat, the pattern of his kind, ambled toward Ha-Thitsle, urinating on everything that he passed, claiming it as his own. When he reached Ha-Thitsle he stopped and grumbled, “So this is the false creation Fryth has set to replace me. Well, I don’t see much merit in it. Hardly more than a mouthful, I imagine!” Then he opened his mouth and lunged toward Ha-Thitsle.

Fortunately, Ha-Thitsle was too quick for Matagroskr, or none of us would be here to tell this story. He leaped to the side and led Matagroskr in a great chase around the broken nut, barely keeping in the lead, wondering what he could do to save his own skin. He was quick; so was Matagroskr. He was clever; he had every reason to believe Matagroskr was the same. But he was small, and Matagroskr big. What could be done?

The other beasts heard the noise of Matagroskr’s cursing and came to witness what was happening. Soon a large crowd had gathered round and were laughing at the sight of Matagroskr chasing Ha-Thitsle. Ha-Thitsle despised the attention, but Matagroskr laughed with the rest of them; in fact, at times he stopped to pose and to boast in his greatness. This gave Ha-Thitsle time to think, to plan how he would escape. He noticed the pieces of the nut he had been grown in were far more than two; it appeared that Fryth had been hasty in releasing his final creation, and many shell fragments littered the ground.

This gave Ha-Thitsle an idea. He leaped on one of the fragments and covered it with his hindquarters while Matagroskr’s face was turned; he waited as the great rat charged toward him, then slowed, suspicious. Matagroskr realized that Ha-Thitsle had a plan, but did not yet suspect what it was.

“Great Matagroskr, are you so afraid of me? The least of Fryth’s beasts?” Ha-Thitsle asked. The creatures surrounding him snickered. Matagroskr glared at them out of the corner of his eye.

“Puny, pathetic Ha-Thitsle, I merely wanted to give you a moment more to appreciate the life that Fryth had blessed you with while it lasted.” Matagroskr smiled a yellow smile.

“Funny, but other beasts do not sit before helpless food as you do; even El-Aifaynra pounces on lettuce the moment he catches up to it, though it cannot run away. Surely you are braver than a rabbit, great Matagroskr?” Ha-Thitsle crouched to make himself as small as possible.

Matagroskr’s eyes flashed red. “None of Fryth’s creations are braver than me!” he roared. He leaped upon Ha-Thitsle! That was almost the end of the father-mouse: he hadn’t expected Matagroskr to strike like a viper. But just in time, he jumped so that he fully entered Matagroskr’s mouth, and Matagroskr’s teeth snapped right on the shell fragment that Ha-Thitsle had left behind. When Matagroskr’s large incisors struck the shell, his top-right one shattered with a spray of tooth and blood!

Matagroskr roared in pain, giving Ha-Thitsle the moment he needed to leap again from Matagroskr’s mouth, leaving pellets behind as a gift. While Matagroskr writhed on the ground, and the other beasts of Fryth’s creation rolled on backs and bellies with laughter, Ha-Thitsle escaped into the world, so ensuring that you and I could be here today.

---

Hazel hung breathlessly on Nusk’s every word. When the storyteller finished and bowed his head, she broke into squeaking applause along with the rest of the band, cheering for Ha-Thitsle’s cunning. Many mice jumped on each other and began wrestling in imitation of Ha-Thitsle’s and Matagrosker’s first fight.

“Nusk always knows the right story,” Twitch said, his round ears happily perked upright. He hopped to his paws and wriggled his whole body, then began bounding about the hollow, joining in the explosion of energy. The hollow felt like a nest of pups exploring what they were capable of; Hazel watched with pleasure, thinking she was just the right size to play the Ha-Thitsle to any other mouse’s Matagroskr, when Twitch’s celebrations brought him near the hollow’s entrance—

“Stop!” Pebble shouted—

A paw, claws, movement so fast Hazel almost couldn’t register it—

Then Twitch was gone.

A high-pitched squeak rent the air, nearly striking Hazel dead with dread on the spot; it just as quickly was silenced by a wet crunch. Hazels bones threatened to shake out of her as a throaty purr followed, reverberating through the hollow.

(The rest of The Courage in a Small Heart can be read here.)